The Fall of Moria
Feb. 22nd, 2009 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenThe Taruithorn banquet was yesterday. Well, it was today, accounding for a mid-morning many-hour nap. Having spent twelve hours drinking, dancing and dishwashing, sleeping until lunchtime didn't really seem like such a bad idea. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shimgray, for reasons BEST KNOWN TO HIMSELF, decided that for the nth year running, he wished to spend a lot of time washing up, and I had decided to come and make merry and also to use the opportunity to wear a pink salwar kameez, and accordingly we set out yesterday morning for the wilds of North Oxford through what was probably the nicest day of the year so far, being all fresh and springlike and other such entirely unprecedented things.
(An explanatory note: Tauruithorn is the university's Tolkien society. I have been meaning to go to the annual banquet, which is a cheerfully chaotic self-catered affair, every year since 2006, and had been failing conspicuously on this point until yesterday. It is notable mostly for singing, dancing, food, so much food omg, a plethora of small children, and a long, slow, cheerful slide into somnolent corpulence by the end of the night.)
It was exactly half past twelve when we arrived (this part is important), and I got embroiled immediately in helping put up a canopy with the help of several bamboo poles, duct tape and string. I had never metteh_elb before, and I think I had met proskynesis once. For some reason this didn't seem to be an issue; they told me joyous things about the Aubrey and Maturin series ("You have debauched my sloth!") whilst we got into a rhythm with the duct tape and table cloths. The canopies nevertheless decided to collapse and had to be cut away with fabric scissors, and were got rid of in time for them to start bringing the food out.
I am now going to take a deep breath, pause, and talk about the food. There were seven courses. They were kind of amazing. Er. Highlights at this point included honeycomb toffee and candied orange dipped in chocolate, nuts burnt with chilli and brown sugar and flowing mead (which, because of the golden colour, did look like everyone was cheerfully knocking back enormous amounts of neat whisky). Later, there were tiny little amuses (avocado and tomato miniature sculptures) and starters involving feta-aubergine creations of amazing, sushi, more avocado, chicken, roast vegetables, more sushi, more feta, I may have gone to a happy food place. The main course was pie. There were five different types of pie: I had the pheasant and brie and had to go and take a little walk in case my body decided to never let me eat again. And there was dessert. There had been blowtorches involved in the construction of the desserts. Shim found God in the chocolate pudding. It was that sort of an experience.
Other things happened that did not include food in any way:
-osymandias dressing up as the Watcher in the Water, and touching everyone greatly with his noodly appendages;
-sir_rosealot deciding that she was entirely too drunk, at three o'clock in the afternoon, to dance; I thought I wasn't drunk enough. We decided that between us we cancelled out, and should get up and attempt to move in a rhythmic fashion. I actually didn't regret this at all; it turns out I like folk dancing, despite never having done it before.
(Also, there is something very lovely about being drunk in the middle of the afternoon, and being sober again by evening. It gives everything a kind of blue-sky surreal glaze. No one seemed to mind my being the far side of tipsy when helping out in the kitchen; it seemed almost approriate when I went round with the mulled-wine-flagon trolley.)
-sebastienne arriving, glorious in her helmet, in the mid-afternoon, and being immediately asked to sing. I explained, through my flagon of mulled wine, that she has an invisible sign on her head with "I can sing, ask me how!" on her head. She may not have believed me. There was nevertheless more singing.
(Much, much later, and after a lot more mulled wine,teh_elb, proskynesis and I got up to sing a composition of our own making, that I cannot really remember now but featured "Moooooooooooooria!" to the tune of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". There was applause. I may have repressed the rest of it.)
-A declaration, over aforememntioned dessert, fromdr_biscuit, regarding an unexpected feature of a penis viewed in cross-section. "It looks like John Howard."
-More dancing, with violent twirling and flailing and getting it wrong and laughing, and finally, after twelve hours, getting Shim out of the kitchen long enough to dance with me, only forosymandias to come running out and shout, "Dishwasher! How do you switch the machine on?"
And off he went - but I got him back eventually, and there was quiet twirling around an almost-empty floor, and we went home eventually, on bikes without lights at one o'clock in the morning, but it was a lovely, lovely day. Real life continues somewhat suck, but it was a very lovely holiday.
shimgray, for reasons BEST KNOWN TO HIMSELF, decided that for the nth year running, he wished to spend a lot of time washing up, and I had decided to come and make merry and also to use the opportunity to wear a pink salwar kameez, and accordingly we set out yesterday morning for the wilds of North Oxford through what was probably the nicest day of the year so far, being all fresh and springlike and other such entirely unprecedented things. (An explanatory note: Tauruithorn is the university's Tolkien society. I have been meaning to go to the annual banquet, which is a cheerfully chaotic self-catered affair, every year since 2006, and had been failing conspicuously on this point until yesterday. It is notable mostly for singing, dancing, food, so much food omg, a plethora of small children, and a long, slow, cheerful slide into somnolent corpulence by the end of the night.)
It was exactly half past twelve when we arrived (this part is important), and I got embroiled immediately in helping put up a canopy with the help of several bamboo poles, duct tape and string. I had never met
teh_elb before, and I think I had met proskynesis once. For some reason this didn't seem to be an issue; they told me joyous things about the Aubrey and Maturin series ("You have debauched my sloth!") whilst we got into a rhythm with the duct tape and table cloths. The canopies nevertheless decided to collapse and had to be cut away with fabric scissors, and were got rid of in time for them to start bringing the food out. I am now going to take a deep breath, pause, and talk about the food. There were seven courses. They were kind of amazing. Er. Highlights at this point included honeycomb toffee and candied orange dipped in chocolate, nuts burnt with chilli and brown sugar and flowing mead (which, because of the golden colour, did look like everyone was cheerfully knocking back enormous amounts of neat whisky). Later, there were tiny little amuses (avocado and tomato miniature sculptures) and starters involving feta-aubergine creations of amazing, sushi, more avocado, chicken, roast vegetables, more sushi, more feta, I may have gone to a happy food place. The main course was pie. There were five different types of pie: I had the pheasant and brie and had to go and take a little walk in case my body decided to never let me eat again. And there was dessert. There had been blowtorches involved in the construction of the desserts. Shim found God in the chocolate pudding. It was that sort of an experience.
Other things happened that did not include food in any way:
-
osymandias dressing up as the Watcher in the Water, and touching everyone greatly with his noodly appendages;-
sir_rosealot deciding that she was entirely too drunk, at three o'clock in the afternoon, to dance; I thought I wasn't drunk enough. We decided that between us we cancelled out, and should get up and attempt to move in a rhythmic fashion. I actually didn't regret this at all; it turns out I like folk dancing, despite never having done it before. (Also, there is something very lovely about being drunk in the middle of the afternoon, and being sober again by evening. It gives everything a kind of blue-sky surreal glaze. No one seemed to mind my being the far side of tipsy when helping out in the kitchen; it seemed almost approriate when I went round with the mulled-wine-flagon trolley.)
-
sebastienne arriving, glorious in her helmet, in the mid-afternoon, and being immediately asked to sing. I explained, through my flagon of mulled wine, that she has an invisible sign on her head with "I can sing, ask me how!" on her head. She may not have believed me. There was nevertheless more singing.(Much, much later, and after a lot more mulled wine,
teh_elb, proskynesis and I got up to sing a composition of our own making, that I cannot really remember now but featured "Moooooooooooooria!" to the tune of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". There was applause. I may have repressed the rest of it.)-A declaration, over aforememntioned dessert, from
dr_biscuit, regarding an unexpected feature of a penis viewed in cross-section. "It looks like John Howard."-More dancing, with violent twirling and flailing and getting it wrong and laughing, and finally, after twelve hours, getting Shim out of the kitchen long enough to dance with me, only for
osymandias to come running out and shout, "Dishwasher! How do you switch the machine on?" And off he went - but I got him back eventually, and there was quiet twirling around an almost-empty floor, and we went home eventually, on bikes without lights at one o'clock in the morning, but it was a lovely, lovely day. Real life continues somewhat suck, but it was a very lovely holiday.
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no subject
on 2009-02-22 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-22 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-22 07:30 pm (UTC)http://education.vetmed.vt.edu/Curriculum/VM8054/Labs/Lab27/IMAGES/PENIS%20CROSS%20SECTION%202.JPG
and
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00647/news-graphics-2007-_647952a.jpg
no subject
on 2009-02-22 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-22 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-23 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-23 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-22 08:03 pm (UTC)Also ahaha now I want to Tolkienise many, many carols. The idea of "Mooo-ooooooo-oooooooooo-oooooria, in a cave they deeelved-o!" is awesome enough, but I feel the world also needs, like, O Little Town Of Hobbiton and Maia We Have Heard On High and stuff. Bwah.
no subject
on 2009-02-22 09:08 pm (UTC)Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold,
Gold, gold gold gold, gold-gold,
Gold, gold, gold, gold. Gold!
no subject
on 2009-02-22 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-23 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-23 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-23 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-23 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-24 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-24 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-25 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-02-25 08:08 pm (UTC)